Muhammad Ali of Egypt

Muhammad Ali (4 March 1769-2 August 1849), also called Mehmet Ali, was Khedive of Egypt from 1805 to 1849. He was formerly a general of the Ottoman Empire but went on to crush the Mamelukes and create the Khedivate of Egypt.

Biography
Mehmet Ali was an ethnic Albanian who volunteered for the Nizam-I-Cedit army that was sent from Greece to Egypt in 1800 to relieve the province of the "Egypt Campaign" of Napoleon. After the French left in 1801 a power vacuum opened in which the Mamelukes who ruled Egypt clashed with the Ottoman Empire overlords of the region. Mehmet Ali fought for both sides before forming his own country in 1805 after stamping the Mamelukes out. He took over Sudan in the 1820s from the Shaigiya tribe of Africans and defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Nezib in 1839. His power base lasted until 1914.